Deaths Among Journalists Up 244 Percent in Five Years

January 07, 2008 10:58 AM

by
findingDulcinea Staff

A Reporters Without Borders report charts a rise in the number of journalists killed while working in the field; following from findings that show that for many, freedom of press is not an inalienable right.

A recently released report from Reporters without Borders shows Iraq, Somalia and Pakistan as the deadliest countries for journalists.

In particular, the report highlights the high number of journalists killed in Iraq last year: 47. In Iraq, insurgents are deliberately targeting journalists.

According to the report, "No country has ever seen more journalists killed than Iraq, with at least 207 media workers dying there since the March 2003 U.S. invasion—more than in the Vietnam War, the fighting in ex-Yugoslavia, the massacres in Algeria or the Rwanda genocide.”

The report also found that 877 journalists were arrested, 1,511 journalists were physically attacked or threatened, and 67 journalists were kidnapped.

The findings echo those of a 2007 report from the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, which recorded 64 journalists killed in 2007, which was the deadliest year for journalists since 1994.

In addition, in March 2007, the International News Safety Institute reported that between 1996 and 2006, Russia was the second-most dangerous place for reporters after Iraq.

The rising mortality rate for journalists is especially distressing when considered in the context of the number of countries that place small value on freedom of speech. A month ago, the BBC reported that in a global poll, only 56 percent of respondents judged that freedom of the press was "very important to ensure a free society."

Reporters Without Borders found that Iraq, Somalia and Pakistan were the deadliest countries for journalists. In addition, the organization also found that last year, 877 journalists were arrested, 1,511 journalists were physically attacked or threatened and 67 journalists were kidnapped.

The full report, “Press Freedom Round-Up 2007”, examines attacks on journalists in Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe, the ex-Soviet Bloc, North Africa and the Middle East. Europe and the ex-Soviet Bloc saw the least number of deaths of journalists. The most dangerous region for newshounds was the North Africa/Middle East region, with 48 dying in 2007.

Reporters Without Borders is an international organization with offices in Bangkok, London, New York, Tokyo and Washington. Its mission is to “defend journalists who have been persecuted for doing their work,” as well as fighting against censorship and campaigning for the safety of journalists.

According to a report by the Committee to Protect Journalists, 64 journalists were killed in 2007, making it the deadliest year for journalists since 1994. Of those fatalities, 31 were killed in Iraq, which for the fifth year in a row, is the deadliest country for reporters.

CPJ provides a list of journalists killed in 2007, which includes Zakia Zaki, who started Sada-i-Sulh, or Peace Radio, in Afghanistan. Peace Radio covered issues such as human rights, women’s rights and education.

On Dec. 10, 2007, the BBC reported on its research showing that freedom of the press is not given the same importance in all countries in the world. On average, 56 percent of recipients rated it as something “very important to ensure a free society.”

The International News Safety Institute published a report in March 2007 titled "Killing the Messenger," looking at violence against journalists between 1996 and 2006. The institute's findings showed that Russia is second only to Iraq in terms of the number of journalists to have been killed during that period.

A Muscovite journalist investigating Russian arms deals, Safronov fell to his death on March 2, 2007. He plunged five floors down his apartment building’s stairwell and left no suicide note. In the wake of the death of the journalist Anna Politkovskaya, the press was apt to suspect foul play. Safronov was a journalist for the independent Russian daily Kommersant, which had a history of upsetting the Putin administration. At the time of his death he was allegedly investigating Russian arms deals with Syria and Iran.

Reporters Without Borders, a campaign group working for press freedom, interviewed the deputy editor of Kommersant, Ilya Bulivanov. Bulivanov was emphatic that Safronov was not a man who would have killed himself. He also requested that the case not be politicized, saying, “People should not write that Ivan was an opponent of the regime. That would be false.”

Anna PolitkovskayaAnna Politkovskaya, a reporter known for her Chechen war coverage and opposition to Putin, was murdered in 2006. While Shamil Burayev, a former Chechyen politician, was charged with her murder, several reporters, including The Moscow Times journalist Yulia Latynina, have speculated that Politkovskaya’s murder could be traced back to the Russian government. Latynina writes that the murder was “absolutely not the style of hired killers; it is much more the modus operandi of a government law enforcement agency.”

Politkovskaya visited Chechnya more than 40 times and, according to Reporters Without Borders, "was the only Russian journalist who reported on the second Chechnya war," which dates from 1999 and continues to this day.

Allen Johnston describes his capture and his detainment in his own words on a BBC radio download. “I paced backwards and forwards across the cell. Five strides, then a turn, and five strides back. Mile, after mile, after mile. Imagine yourself in that room. Imagine pacing, or just sitting for three hours, for five hours, for ten hours. After you had done twelve hours, you would still have four or five more before you could hope to fall asleep.”

George Orwell wrote a preface to his satirical fable “Animal Farm” in which he laid out his argument for the importance of a free press, a preface which was itself suppressed. It was 1945, and the British government didn’t want to offend its Russian allies. In that preface, he writes that “intellectual freedom is a deep-rooted tradition without which our characteristic Western culture could only doubtfully exist. From that tradition many of our intellectuals are visibly turning away.”

In the 17th century, the English poet and Puritan John Milton wrote “Areopagitica,” a defense of free speech that influenced the Founding Fathers and many others. Milton believed that for a man to be accepted by God, he must choose to be good. The exercise of free will requires temptation, and consequently mankind must not be hidden from the evil thoughts that might tempt him to stray. The most quoted passage is the following: “He that can apprehend and consider vice with all her baits and seeming pleasure, and yet abstain—he is the true warfaring Christian. I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and seeks her adversary, but slinks out of the race, when that immortal garland is to be run for, not without heat and dust." The legacy of "Areopagitica" is considered in a Salon article.